Hasta luego, BA

When I got back from Ostende it was finally time to do what I'd been meaning to do this whole trip - begin to get to know the city of my birth. Basically that means getting a guidebook and visiting all the tourist traps, and hopefully learning something about Baires in the process. I mean, I wasn't going to learn a lot about Argentine politics from looking at a bunch of government buildings, but at least I was going to pick up a bit of culture from the very fact that I was alone and therefore forced to interact with people I didn't know. Plus, tourist traps are so for a reason...they're cool to see. I'm not going to describe everything I did and saw because that would take forever, so here are the highlights:

I started off walking down Avenida de Mayo, one of the main streets which has some spectacular buildings including the amazing old-style Cafe Tortoni and the Palacio del Congreso (Congress). That leads you down to the Plaza de Mayo, the heart of the city and home to the Casa Rosada, literally the "Pink House", which is the seat of parliament. At first I thought pink was a strange colour to pick for the centre of such a male-dominated arena as politics, but clearly the Argentine men have no limiting prejudices about the supposed femininity of the colour pink, as I found that pink shirts on Argentine men have reached epidemic proportions. The Plaza also has an amazing cathedral, in which the remains of José de San Martin, who liberated Argentina from the tyranny of the Spanish (yay) and possibly apart from Ernesto "El Che" Guevara, is the biggest Argentine hero, are buried. They even have poker-faced guards wearing silly hats guarding the mausoleum. I don't really understand this thing with the hats. Do the governments of the world have some special people that they go to to design the hats for their guards? Some wacked-out bunch who have listened to Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a few too many times?

Plaza San Martin is another plaza in Baires, much greener and a bit nicer than Plaza de Mayo. It's a cool place to hang out, people-watch, read a book, or just lie in the sun. There's a Palacio de San Martin, and an arms museum (interesting but not fascinating) and a war memorial for those that gave their lives in the Falklands War. The memorial is pretty nice actually. If I lived in Baires I could see myself spending a lot of time in that plaza.

For some reason I really like cemetaries, and the one in Baires, the Cementerio de la Recoleta is one of the top three cemetaries in the world, so I was pretty excited about going there. Luckily I arrived just as a tour was starting so I learned all about the different types of graves they have there (mausoleums, niches, and I can't remember the names of all the other ones). The guide showed us some of the important people that were buried there, including a couple of presidents and the one and only Evita Perón. The Duarte family mausoleum isn't one of the most fancy ones in the cemetary, but there were so many people crowded around it you could barely see it, let alone get a picture. Some of the mausoleums were huge with sculptures, different levels, marble, inscriptions, the works. One even had a small chapel inside so you could have the last rites or whatever in there. Nonetheless despite all the grandeur I still like the Assistens Kirkegård in Copenhagen better. Recoleta is like a little metropolis - all built up with no greenery. You can't walk around and feel peaceful with so much concrete and granite. Of course it was still fascinating. I wasn't able to locate my family's mausoleum - there are thousands in the cemetary and for them to be able to find it you need to give them the deathdate of one of the people buried inside. Of course I had no clue, and I wasn't about to wander the cemetary all day in search of the needle in the haystack.

Another cool part of Buenos Aires is Puerto Madero, and the Costa Nera which is right behind it. Puerto Madero is a little port that has just been revitalised and upmarketed. Now it's full of expensive hotels, restaurants and bars but if you look around you can still eat fairly cheaply. The water is quite pretty and it's even nicer at night. Behind Puerto Madero is the Costa Nera which is by a river which was all dried up when I was there so it was a river of mud and green slime (erk). The Costa Nera is home to the dodgy chorizo stands of Buenos Aires, and practically any time of day or night you can find the little carts lined up with choripan, chimichurri, vacio, and other delicious wares. It's buyer beware though, make sure you ask the locals which carts are ok, because you just might end up with a case of dysentery.

One of the days I went to see the Teatro Colón (shut) the Palacio de Justicia (covered by scaffolding) the Teatro Cervantes (shut) and the Museum of Modern Art (shut). At that point I decided it just wasn't going to be my day and went shopping. Well, window shopping anyway. Calle Florida isn't the cheapest place to buy stuff. Another day I went shopping in Once, and there I did go to town. It's like the unofficial Chinatown of Baires, where you can get clothes really cheap. They're not really of the highest quality, but hey, they're really cheap! I bought, amongst other things, a really really really really cool red patent leather backpack shaped like a record, with actual records on the front and back! It's hard to describe, maybe when I get back to Dublin I'll take a picture of it and post it here. Suffice to say it's really cool.

These small descriptions don't really do justice to the amount of sightseeing I really did (and the sheer amount of walking I really did) but I know this must be like going through someone else's endless albums of holiday snaps (ie. you can't wait for it to be over) so I'm going to end it here.

The best and worst thing abou the last days in Baires was catching up with everybody for the last time. In Mar de Las Pampas, we'd arranged for a sort of cousin's dinner (there were only four of us in Baires at the time, but hell, it's better than nothing, which is what I have 99% of the time). We went to Gustavo's house, and my god, the man can cook! I was astounded at the deliciousness of everything and now am all inspired to expand my culinary repertoire which currently consists of spaghetti bolognaise, stirfry, cheese on toast and canned soup. We chatted, ate, drank and chatted, and laughed. Regular stuff, stuff I really like.

On the way home, Maru realised that her mobile phone, usually surgically attached to either her hip or her ear, was missing. After some minutes of flipping out, we realised she'd left it at Gus's house. Bad luck for her but good luck for me, as it gave Gus and I an excuse (like we really needed one) to meet up for lunch the next day. We had a lovely lunch and said goodbye (sad but inevitable), and I hand delivered the phone to Maru's office (what service!!).

That night I met up with Clau and Juan and we walked up Puerto Madero and Costa Nera, after eating some delicious icecream (and discovering they now have beer flavoured icecream, strange but true). More and more chatting, and we would have stayed out but it had started to rain (plus we were really hungry) so it was time for another delicious parrillada. Mmmm. The restaurant was really cool (if noisy) and the lights were low (I think we were eating by candlelight) so we basically couldn't see what we were eating. This is totally fun. Plus with parrillada everything is delicious so there's no chance of biting into something you don't like. Plus the tablecloths were paper and they provided you with crayons to draw with, also appealing to my child-like mindset. We had planned to go home and have some caipirinhas but in the end after all the walking, plus the mountain of food, we were pretty wrecked and (well, Clau and I anyway) fell into bed as soon as we got home.

The next day I met up with my old friend Maura who I'd made friends with on my last trip in '97. We've kept in contact a little over the years but sadly my email writing frequency is generally quite low and Mau has suffered the consequences of that! We went shopping, I tried not to buy things, she showed me the state of the Showcentre, and what a sad state it's in! Last time I was in Baires, the Showcentre had just opened, and it was full of shoppers during the day, and at night the big open spaces were full of people dancing. Now, we went and I think there was about seven people there, not including us. All the shops except for a video arcade and a fast food joint were shut. It was generally eerie, and they should tear it down and build something useful there. That night I had dinner at her place with her family. Mau's boyfriend was the guest of honour as he had just graduated from University with a degree in Engineering. Congratulations Diego! We ate tonnes of food (duh) and the conversation was lively - it was interesting trying to find someone I hated at Maxi's insistence! They found out I love dictionaries so now I think they think I'm a bit weird. But hey, I guess that's old news.

The next day - the tango capital of Buenos Aires - Caminito and San Telmo. San Telmo is full of awesome antique shops and cute little boutique stores - as well as tourist trappy markets selling Boca Juniors merchandise and handicrafts. What I love about the area is all the colour, especially in Caminito where all the houses are painted in different bright colours, Nyhaven style. Pity the place is full of tourists, but it's not like I can complain. Plus we saw some tango dancers and listened to tango while we had lunch. There were Boca fans everywhere, but what can you do. In the afternoon we went to Carla's place to see her and say goodbye, and laze around a bit in the pool. Juan and Clau drove me back to my aunt and uncle's in the city, and Clau and I said a watery goodbye. Man I hate goodbyes, and I'd been full of them over the last days.

That night I had arranged to go out with Maru and her friends, to dance the night away. True to form we didn't go anywhere until about midnight, had some drinks at a bar and then went to the nightclub to dance. We all had a blast, the music was fun, we went crazy and left the club at...I don't even remember what time. We left the club and the sky looked kind of grim and threatening. By the time we had bought and eaten hot dogs, it was pouring with rain. We were completely saturated running the fifteen metres from the hotdog stand to the car. We dropped Maru's friends off at home and began the longish drive to the Quinta in Maschwitz. The car ride was awesome fun, we stopped for terrible roadside coffee and got even wetter (if indeed such a thing was possible), "I got my mind set on you" by George Harrison came on the radio, (which has become kind of like my Buenos Aires theme song) and arrived at Maschwitz dead tired but contented. Lunch ensued, then sleep, then driving back to Baires in preparation for my flight the next morning.

Maru had kindly offered to drive me to the airport at dead o'clock in the morning, which I especially appreciate as she is soooo not a morning person. We left kind of on time which was pretty good for us two, and made it to the airport with two hours to spare. This we thought would be plenty until we actually arrived at the airport and saw the queue was similar in size to the one formed behind my parents when they took 45 minutes to check in. We installed ourselves amnd prepared for the long wait with coffee and cereal bars, and checking out the cuties in the line behind us, who ended up on my flight (yay) but not sitting anywhere near me (boo). In the end by the time I checked in it was boarding time and we didn't have any time to just hang out, so straight to the big blue doors to say goodbye for the last time (for this trip anyway). I didn't want to leave Baires, I'd had such a good time, but it was time for it to end. Time to move on to other things. Time to go to Peru and tackle the Andes. I was scared, but excited. Little did I know what was awaiting me in Lima.